You always want what you can't haveMonday, June 16, 2008

I haven't written poetry for ten years or something, which is why you must excuse my rusty poetry writing

==

You crawled into my veins and enveloped me,
not unlike blue ink penetrates through clear water
You claimed me for your own,
turning me a light shade of blue

Giggling and shying away,
can't be me around you
Self conscious like school girl,
that's what you make me do

Silly things and poking and tickling,
talks about the randomest of things
Discovering words unknown,
with haste through dictionaries flipping

In these warm Arabian nights,
there's nothing I want more than you
To hold you close to feel your hair,
to be one rather than two

But then you'd be just another notch on my bedpost
and then you'd be nothing special
But you chose to just smile and walk away
and i watched you go - bewildered

Perhaps that's what sets you apart
from all those have been and will
Intelligence and humour and laughter,
wisdom and maturity and wit

And as I watch you fade away,
a wry smile on my face i have
Not because you refused to be mine
but because i always want what i can't have

Birthdays, oh joy!

Birthdays are wonderful. My birthday is the one day I look forward to each year. For most people, birthday isn't a big deal but for me it is The Big Deal. I'm an attention whore - I love the pampering and feeling special that comes with birthdays. Not to mention birthday presents. More often than not, I am usually in Dubai for my birthday, so I don't get to celebrate it with friends back home and end up missing out on all the potential presents. However, my family is the most kick ass family on the face of this earth (especially Joe), and they give me the most awesomest presents ever.

This year, it was an ASUS eee PC (laptop) from Bhaiyya and an HTC Touch Diamond mobile phone from Bajjoe. A month early, hehe, but I anticipate too much.

Last year it was the all expenses paid trip to all over Europe that didn't work out cuz of Schengen visa rejection but turned into one month in UK :)

The year before, for my 20th birthday - it was my beloved car, the infamous AFS-338.

And for my 19th birthday, I got the lovely faithful HP Pavilion DV 1000 - my wonderful, wonderful laptop. And my Nokia 6680, that has remained my love for three years.

Don't remember what my 18th birthday present was from my family but I do remember a present from someone else - a lovely, memorable trip to Murree where I picked white daisies from the hills and walked in the clouds. Yes, I'll never forget. And then there was the excitement of finally getting an NIC, heh :)

I love birthdays. I loved my 20th birthday - one of my only birthdays I've gotten to celebrate in Karachi. Me, Huma, Saba, Nausheen, Natasha, Muzaffar etc, tons of people at Cafe Basement at midnight. I was caught between running upstairs to receive ten thousand phone calls and going downstairs to cut the cake (no mobile signals in Basement). I got my own cake excitedly and man, was it delicious.

I can't wait for the next 4th of July.. it's coming soon, soon, soon. Since I know my next birthday will be in England, I've decided to make sure I celebrate it in Karachi this year. Hence, my flight to Karachi on the 3rd of July just in time. I've decided to not plan immaculately this year and let's just see how plans fall into place. I just don't want to turn 22. Can I turn 21 again this year?

To All The Boys I Loved Before -a soliloquy at two in the morning

I would write this if I could write like her

==

Everybody go,
The party's over,
I want to be alone in my head,
In my bed tonight,
You never show

What's it like being around someone you no longer have a scene with and yet are attracted to at some level or another? Really, really weird, that's what it is. I don't know whether you do this, but I have all these porn flashbacks happening when I meet someone I once was involved with. Especially when the last time involved his tongue and my throat.

You must really love her,
You think I don't know,
But I do, yeah it's true,
I think over is over

It's the season for ex-boyfriends again. Winter does this to me, no matter what city I'm in. Thoughts of what once was, what once happened, thoughts of when I was the happy message on the cellphone, the one whose call you COULD NOT cut, whose calls you always picked up, even if you just picked up to say, "Hey baby, I'm busy, can I call you back?"

I'm right back where I started,
(when it comes to wanting you),
I can't have what I wanted

This is so not about you. Or you either. This is about the disembodied arms, this is about male cologne that stays on my fingers, this is about me sniffing my t-shirt and my palms, this is about me leaning forward to talk to someone that ONCE, once, I had something with and suddenly being assaulted by their boy smells, the sweat, the salt, the undertones of sweetness. The neck I bit, the mouth I touched. And being undone. This is so about me, more so when I think about my shoulder, the one you claimed for your own with a circle of teethmarks, my knuckles that you surreptitiously caressed underneath tables and in taxis. How can you give up a country you conquered?

But I did, I can I was, I am,
Only human, living, dying,
Just like any fool who ever breathed

With mascara-soaked eyelashes, I look up, my smile throbbing at the corners of my mouth. You will (because you once were my lover) touch my cheek, we have a physical intimacy, blessed to people who have been close, you are tender even as you are brusque. You might also kiss my forehead, the chasteness exuding from all pores of you, but especially the way you tuck your lips inwards. It will be as though I imagined it, us being together at all. There are moments, there are always moments. There are moments when I think of everyone I've ever loved--loved hard, loved with every atom of my being. There are moments when you and I exchange a look, or when I say something I think is funny under my breath and you're the only one who turns to me, and your laugh is reluctant, as though I'm forcing it out of you. There are moments where there is "unprotected eye contact" and I catch my breath, but you're always the first to look away.

I know where I'm going,
I'm tripping,
I'm sliding around,
That's ok,
At least I'm excited,
It wasn't how I planned it

I return home, and I know that till the next time I hear from you, my phone will be silent. We are platonic now, we are all platonic, you probably have someone else, who demands your time. Some of you do, and you're the ones who dance away the most. Some of you don't and you hold my gaze, you lean forward, you let our knees brush against each other. You will point out pretty girls, talk about your sex lives heartily, but all the while you'll have your hand on my shoulder, your eyes will linger over the expanse of throat or knee. Again, as I drink my drink, I will remember you unclothed (that is always mine), maybe you're thinking the same thoughts, but you smile, deliberately snapping the thread you tried so hard to establish when we first met. How am I different now than what I was? What made you want to be with me once and not anymore? How are you different?

Maybe it's the sanest thing,
Or just the sweetest kind of dream,
But love was surely made for fools,
Love was surely made for fools like me

We will laugh about this one day. I will laugh about this one day. Already, the idea of some of you is amusing. No, correct that, already the idea of some of you with me is amusing. But there are evenings, my love, there are evenings like this one, when I play music that is mournful and yearning and I think about you and I remember that I once was someone else, someone who bounced off your vibrations, I remember you were my happy text message, I answered your calls all the time even if I just said, "Hey baby, I'm busy, can I call you back?" I remember claiming you as my own, marking my territory into the hollows of your throat, and the side of your neck. I remember when I loved you, to whatever degree, and then I remember when I didn't anymore. As much as you gave me, I gave you. As much as you took away, I took away too. Here we are now, baby, here we are now. Isn't life funny?

Courtesy: http://thecompulsiveconfessor.blogspot.com/

a speculative illusion or an illusionary speculation?Tuesday, June 10, 2008

I am slowly beginning to realize, keeping in light recent events, that speculation is everything. Something, or someone for that matter, is only as valuable as its perceived value. Human beings have an innate sense of conformity.. if one sees one thing as valuable, the others will soon follow. Whether it's the market value of an individual professionally or whether it's the hotness factor in some female on the street.

What really matters is your own attitude about yourself. Any person is only as successful as the speculation they can generate - if you have an aura of importance around you, the people you encounter will soon think of you as The Important Person. Anyone can make or break himself.

It's sad and enlightening at the same time - we all live in an illusion fueled by speculation.

just when you thought it was overWednesday, May 28, 2008

Lately I've come to realize how life is all about bad timing. Something to the effect of "an old man turned 98, he won a lottery - died the next day." Random lines from Alanis Morissette keep popping up in my head as of late. Too much imperfect timing, way too many times.. You meet someone, you leave the country. You meet someone there, and leave that place for somewhere else. The 'other country' could be a geographical different country or a different emotional continent altogether.

What is it about distance that scares people so much? Is it the insecurity of not knowing what someone else might be upto? The fear that their eyes may stray? Or the fear that yours might? Since when did proximity become such a great deal? Are we trying to avoid being sadists or masochists? Have we lost all faith in true love?

A few weeks ago, I was in a cab with a Punjabi driver from Pasroor who told me about the girl he's been in love with since he was 15. It was the cliched village girl, village boy story that you see in old PTV re-runs.. yet it struck a skeptic chord within me and made me wonder if such a love exists anymore. Catching up with an old friend yesterday, I found out she married her childhood sweetheart - the first and only man she had ever been in love with. Does that even happen anymore?

How many of us have scornfully laughed with disbelief after reading Romeo and Juliet? I, for one, could never be a fan of Shakespeare with all his stories about people dying for love. You die for your family, yes. For your nation, yes. For what you believe in, yes. But who dies for love anymore? Who are those people who run away from home abandoning families that have cared for them their entire lives and leave them for someone they've known for a very short time? Who are those people who try to jump off the roof of a building because they can't attain the one they love?

Has love become overrated? Have we become skeptics and cynics subjected to a life resembling a speed dating marathon? We meet, we get to know, we move on to share our stories with someone else.

For most people now, it's always the initial getting-to-know-each-other

butterflies-in-stomach phase that cuts it. Post that, all interest is lost and not unlike a nomad, they move on seeking greener pastures. When did finding true love become so complicated? As little girls reading endless fairytales and watching Disney movies, weren't all of us promised that a prince on a white stallion would come along and sweep us off our feet?

We all honor heroes for different reasons. Sometimes for their bravery, sometimes for their daring, sometimes for their goodness, but mostly we honor heroes because at one point or another we all dream of being rescued. Of course, if the right hero doesn’t come along, sometimes we just have to rescue ourselves - Desperate Housewives

When did life become so 'to each his own'; and when did friendships become more important, comforting and dependable than the pursuit of love?

epiphany.Sunday, May 25, 2008

Carrie: I had to make the big “let’s be friends” speech.. but who am I kidding? Big and I were never friends, we were.. something else. Something that apparently did not end with an engagement party at The Plaza. It’s just.. why her? I mean really.. why her?

Miranda: One word - Hubbell

Samantha: Who's Hubbell?

Charlotte: Hubbell! Robert Hubbell Redford in The Way We Were.

Samantha: Never saw it...

Miranda: What are you.. an alien? How could you not have seen The Way We Were?

Samantha: Chick film..

Miranda: Okay, Robert Redford, Hubbell, is madly in love with Barbara Streissand, Katie. But he can't be with her because she's too complicated and she has wild curly hair.. So he leaves her and marries this.. simple girl.. with straight hair.

Carrie: Ladies, I'm having an epiphany - the world is made up of two types of women: the simple girls, and the Katie girls. I'm a Katie girl!

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Epilogue (Carrie): Then I had a thought.. maybe I didn't break Big. Maybe the problem was.. he couldn't break me. Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed.. Maybe they need to run free until they find someone just as wild to run with

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Taken from Sex and the City - S02E18